First Metal Song Ever?

23 minutes ago, Cynical said:

The Bruce Dickenson era is hit-or-miss with me -- Powerslave is a great album, so is most of Piece of Mind, but otherwise it's mostly stuff I try to avoid --

You don't like Somewhere In Time and Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son?

Nope.  Somewhere in Time's sole reason for being is that first riff on Wasted Years; Seventh Son of a Seventh Son has no such reason for existence that I can find.

1 minute ago, Cynical said:

Seventh Son of a Seventh Son has no such reason for existence that I can find.

What you mean by that?

I mean that it doesn't even have one killer riff that saves the album for 30 seconds like Somewhere in Time does; Seventh Son is just dreadful the whole way through.

@Cynical, Ok... Weird opinion, but I respect it...

Seventh Son is the type of record that Judas Priest got roasted for with Turbo but Iron Maiden somehow escaped. It's really average, and the best track (The Evil That Men Do) can be taken as a standalone song. Concept albums give me massive Spinal Tap vibes, and not in a good way. 

On 8/29/2020 at 12:17 PM, unerxai said:

Communication Breakdown (1969): Early example of a heavy downpicking riff. If it had more gain people would talk more about this riff. I would not consider it the first metal song though.

 

Night Sun's Mournin' (1972): Pioneers of more intricate and complex riffing that would become more popular in the Speed Metal scene of the 80's. Guitar tone is pretty sharp and dirty too.

Punks have certainly noticed Communication Breakdown, and consider it a step on the road to modern -- i.e., '70s -- punk rock. Johnny Ramone based his whole style on that downpicking riff. We know this because he said so. :)

That Night Sun tune was really cool. I've never heard of them before, but the music backed up your comment. I'll be looking for more of this. 

It is hard to say; I definitely wouldn't call "I want you" metal, in any sense. I've never really cared for The Beatles, which is heresy to some, and common knowledge to others. I've only known two other people in my life that love The Beatles: My step mother, and a pothead friend's older brother from high-school. I've tried listening to them, but I've just never really cared for them. They're not bad, but they just don't appeal to me. If I had to go with a similar band from a similar time period, from the UK, I would go with David Bowie or Pink Floyd.

There's Black Sabbath, who of course are credited with creating metal, but they generally sound more like hard rock than metal. Of course there's Motorhead, formed in 1975 where I can see a clear split of rock into both punk, and metal. They're not quite metal, but they're not quite punk either; but I would say they're a pretty close start to the formation of metal. And then you have the Misfits, who had the Earth A.D. / Wolfsblood split that I quoted that is far more metal than punk, but most of their work would be classified as punk.

Metallica, I have tried to listen to many times, and I can't stand them. I think they're crap musicians, and their fight to take down Napster in the late 90's just left an even worse taste in my mouth. But even considering their music, it comes off as "light metal" to me. It's like they're trying to be angry and heavy, but they just don't have it in them.

I may have some very unpopular opinions regarding metal; but I think most people can agree with this: Reign in Blood, South of Heaven, Seasons in the Abyss, and God Hates us All are probably the most "Metal" albums ever made. Slayer is fucking great.

4 hours ago, Jello said:

Metallica, I have tried to listen to many times, and I can't stand them.

Well, I wouldn't say I can't stand them but what I'd say is they had like some interesting material early on (mainly when Dave Mustaine was with them and I think he is more talented than the rest of them were) and after that they've coasted on the notoriety of that early work, not even doing passable stuff like Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden did in their later years, I mean Lulu and St Anger are easily the most derided albums in metal history. And yet they survived that, somehow, because I guess metal fans can be forgiving, I guess. 

I don't care too much for thrash metal as a whole really, but eh, I kinda get Slayer's appeal more than I used to. But best metal albums? I'd say Opeth's Still Life and Blackwater Park. They're just far more interesting than Slayer, and whilst those are not the first albums of Opeth to demonstrate their incredibly interesting style, combining melodic and extreme metal music in progressive fashion, it is where it reaches its zenith in polish and vision, and its pretty clearly their innovations that are the basis for what I'm finding I like in metal nowadays. 

16 hours ago, Mr. Freeze said:

Seventh Son is the type of record that Judas Priest got roasted for with Turbo but Iron Maiden somehow escaped. It's really average, and the best track (The Evil That Men Do) can be taken as a standalone song. Concept albums give me massive Spinal Tap vibes, and not in a good way. 

Just to see if we are in the same page, you are talking about the use of synths in both albums, right?

On the matter of those Iron Maiden albums, Seventh Son and Somewhere in Time, they're my favourite Iron Maiden albums and their best work in my opinion, with The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner being one of their greatest songs in particular. 

Just now, hybridial said:

On the matter of those Iron Maiden albums, Seventh Son and Somewhere in Time, they're my favourite Iron Maiden albums and their best work in my opinion, with The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner being one of their greatest songs in particular. 

Couldn't agree more, my friend!

Check out at 4:20.

Metal af!

6 hours ago, stphrz said:

Check out at 4:20.

 

Metal af!

 

there's actually a metal version of it (well, the intro to a metal song): 

On 8/29/2020 at 11:27 AM, Endless said:

Who the hell hates the Beatles?!?!

Me. Okay to be fair, I don't hate everything they did. Some of the tracks on their later psychedelic albums are...interesting. Not necessarily good, but certainly unusual and experimental. Heck, I'll even admit I like a select few tracks here and there. However a lot of their music, be it covers or original compositions, sounds like complete garbage to me. Like the same crap on the radio that people hate today, except it was pop for the 60s. I also find their music to be extremely dated. It's emblematic of the 60s and you can't listen to it without being taken back to the spirit of the 60s, but none of it really holds up in any other era. As contrast, I love Jimi Hendrix, Iron Butterfly, the Doors, the Stones, and plenty of other bands from that era, and they still are great to listen to, to this day. The Beatles however, just can't compete, even with most 70s rock bands.

Part of the lack of appeal for me is that they don't have any edge, that anti-authority, anti-mainstream charisma a rock band should have. Their music is easy listening for just about anybody. The Stones were one of the first to create that bad boy persona that is synonymous with rock and roll.

The Beatles definitely aren't terrible, but they're not great either, just average at best, yet they get this universal, undeserved praise. I kind of hate them more for their fans treating their music as gospel that everybody must love.  The music itself either doesn't appeal to me, or is just okay but sub-par to most other rock groups of similar stature.

8 hours ago, stphrz said:

Check out at 4:20.

 

Metal af!

 

Yep. It's the song that the "Black Sabbath" riff is derived from.

8 hours ago, stphrz said:

Check out at 4:20.

 

Metal af!

 

Holst's work is the basis of this monster - 

48 minutes ago, QuaketallicA said:

The Beatles definitely aren't terrible, but they're not great either, just average at best, yet they get this universal, undeserved praise. I kind of hate them more for their fans treating their music as gospel that everybody must love.  The music itself either doesn't appeal to me, or is just okay but sub-par to most other rock groups of similar stature.

Pretty much exactly how I feel except, they inflicted Yellow Submarine on the world, a heinous crime. 

Don't forget the need for their fans to claim the Beatles innovated everything ever in rock bands, which they didn't. 

3 hours ago, hybridial said:

Pretty much exactly how I feel except, they inflicted Yellow Submarine on the world, a heinous crime. 

And to think that song somehow came from the same album as Tomorrow Never Knows...

This has been my go to example for a long time now:

Hey listen, I won't argue about which song or riff is the first metal ever. But it doesn't qualify as metal just because you use a power chord or palm mutes. 

While music was slowly getting heavier and heavier during the 70s, the band that really changed things forever is Metallica with Kill em all and then they took it to another level with Ride and Puppets. 

You can say what you want and enjoy what you want, but that's the way it is. 

They didn't invent power chords, palm mutes, shredding or anything - they just evolved it into something unstoppable. They way the introduced harmonies and made them heavy, was also something mind-blowing. 

Much credit to the late Cliff Burton, who taught James many a new tricks. 

Yellow Submarine is great but I'm glad when people say they dislike it because I know to take their opinions on music with a two ton boulder of salt

4 hours ago, Doomkid said:

Yellow Submarine is great but I'm glad when people say they dislike it because I know to take their opinions on music with a two ton boulder of salt

Hey you do you, just don't put it on in front of me when there's an axe anywhere near by because I am not taking responsibility for what happens :P

On 9/2/2020 at 7:13 PM, Coopersville said:

This has been my go to example for a long time now: The Novas - The Crusher

I understand that you are probably refering to the growly voice style, but apart from that it's just a classic Rock 'n' Roll song.

What people eventually codified as metal were all these disparate elements that eventually coalesced into a unified movement. All the progenitors are going to have have some of the ingredients but not all of them.